Faculty work load standards: assuring teaching, service, and scholarship

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Academic Administration

Background:

• Current literature lacks detailed methodologies for developing faculty workload standards.
• Existing standards may not comprehensively address all faculty responsibilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a detailed method for creating a faculty workload standard.
• To establish a standard applicable to teaching, research, scholarly activity, and service.
• To facilitate replication and adaptation of workload standard development.

Main Methods:

• Development of a comprehensive faculty workload standard.
• Application of the standard to a school of nursing faculty (n=85) at a research university.
• Detailed documentation of the methodology for transparency and reproducibility.

Main Results:

• A replicable method for faculty workload standard development was established.
• The standard accounts for diverse faculty roles including teaching, research, and service.
• The detailed description enhances the utility of the developed standard.

Conclusions:

• A robust and detailed methodology for faculty workload standard development has been presented.
• This approach supports equitable distribution of faculty responsibilities.
• The described method can be adapted by other institutions seeking to refine their workload standards.